Dr. Birkett, Reminds me of how fun high-school physics was...the ideal piano, h'mm... >To deflect one possible argument against, namely that the strings would be unstable during hammer impacts, I would respond that: (a) >during the impact the string is not vibrating as a standing wave anyway, so instability of tension is irrelevant, (b) the conventional >configuration traps any change in tension in the speaking length, therefore the effect from hammer impact is greater than it would be with >my hypothetical piano, since changes in tension from the piano will operate over the entire string length, including the front and back >engths, so they have less influence on the speaking portion. In fact, from (b), the longer the non-speaking length portions the better, >contrary to conventional wisdom. Any idea how that would sound, how different from a 'regular' piano? How would speaking into those other lengths more freely change duplex sounds? How would you avoid buzzing at the bridge? I've taken to seating strings over duplexes, front & back, to reduce excess noise. Works well, follow this with seating at the bridge and be ready for a huge drop in speaking length tension. DAMHIK Andrew
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